


Sun Blast Your Shadow

by pearl_o



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Gen, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-02
Updated: 2010-06-02
Packaged: 2017-10-09 21:28:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/91796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pearl_o/pseuds/pearl_o
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Zuko had assumed, somehow, that the hard part would be over.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sun Blast Your Shadow

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to Fox1013 for encouragement and Impertinence for beta.

**Year One**

Zuko had assumed, somehow, that the hard part would be over once his father was defeated. Foolish, that. Nothing in his life had ever been easy, and this was no different.

How do you run a kingdom when you only trust two people in your country? He appoints Uncle as his foremost advisor, of course, and Mai is always by his side. But that leaves the question of what to do about the rest of the court. His father's councillors, his military, his servants: they're all still here, and there is no way to tell who is still loyal to his father's memory, who still thinks Zuko is the impudent traitor sent off to exile. He can't banish them all, let alone execute them, and he feels sure that some of them are just as committed as he is to this new era of peace and hope for the Fire Nation; they couldn't have spoken before, under Ozai, not without ending their own lives, and that of their families.

Besides, everybody deserves the chances he's received to redeem himself.

He asks Toph for help, after the ceremonies are over, but before she leaves with Aang for the Earth Kingdom. It takes the better part of an afternoon, and ends with the onset of a terrible headache and no answers.

"The Fire Nation must have some pretty amazing liars," she says to him afterwards, rubbing her temple and scowling.

"Only the best would have gotten this far to begin with," Zuko tells her.

He banishes a few, the ones whose blatant cruelty he himself has observed over the years, the ones who must take responsibility for the atrocities along with Ozai, and he keeps the rest. He may be indulging snakes in the grass, but what else can he do? He has to put his faith in his country, and in his people. This is the only way.

**Year Two**

"Your father, like Azulon and Sozin before him, ruled through fear," Uncle says. "The people do not fear you."

Zuko is confused. "That's a good thing, isn't it?"

Uncle says gently, "It has been a hundred years, Prince Zuko. They do not remember how to respect justice or kindness." He sighs. "Too much freedom too fast can be as dangerous as none at all."

Crime is everywhere. It's not safe to walk the roads alone at night - nor during the day, for that matter. In the Dragon Bone Catacombs, the Fire Sages have records of the courts and judges from the days before the comet, and he tries to set up a system of law that is not based solely upon his whim. There is a difference between justice and revenge, Zuko knows, but what he doesn't know is how to explain that to his people, who feel betrayed whenever he doesn't punish their enemies with enough severity. The farther from the capital, the more apt people are to take law into their own hands.

The farther away from the capital, the more they talk and criticize, but that isn't a crime anymore, not like it was under the old regime. It's not treason to speak your mind. Free speech is a human right, as the Avatar taught him. He can't just stamp out dissent, or he'll be the same as his father.

In private, when it is the two of them and their bed, surrounded by curtains, and no one else can hear, Mai tells him her doubts. "We've always been proud, and now they see you bowing down to the rest of the world, and they don't understand."

"I don't bow down to the rest of the world," Zuko says. "I just treat them as equals."

Mai shrugs and says, "In their eyes, it's the same thing."

"The Fire Nation has done the world a great wrong, and we need to make it right. This is the only way to do that."

"You can't force humility on a people," Mai says. "They can't stand being weak. They can't stand paying for something that isn't their fault."

"It _is_ our fault!" Zuko says, and as hard as he tries, he's yelling, the anger taking hold of him again. "There is no weakness is asking forgiveness, or in making peace."

"I know that," Mai says, "but your people don't."

**Year Three**

There is no money. For a hundred years, the treasury of the Fire Nation overflowed with the spoils of their war, but now it's bare and dusty. There are industrialists in the country, men who grew rich and fat and satisfied under the years of war; now they grow rich on the peace, through means Zuko still doesn't quite understand.

The army is a shell of what it once was, only the bare minimum of what they need to keep the country running. There is no need for an invasion force, even if they could afford to pay the soldiers' wages, which they can't. All the men of the Fire Nation, newly unemployed, have returned to their villages to sit outside their houses and spit and tell each other stories of the days of the great war.

Halfway through the year, Ozai dies. A poison capsule is found in his clasped hand. The capital city knows almost before Zuko does, the rumors circling furiously almost before the body is cold. "Why did I not know sooner?" Zuko rages, and not one of his people has an answer for him.

It looks like Ozai took the poison from his own hand, but there's no way to be sure. It's possible that a guard in the prison was still loyal to him, brought in the poison on Ozai's request, a traitor to the crown. It's equally possible a guard had him killed, thinking it was what Zuko wanted, that it would be the best thing for the country. Both possibilities are disturbing.

The word in the countryside is that Zuko had him killed, which is ridiculous. Why would he keep him alive for all this time? Why would he keep him in the public prison, so openly, for everybody to know? None of it makes any sense.

**Year Four**

Mai refuses his proposal. "I love you, but I've spent nineteen years as a diplomat's daughter, and I died of boredom every day," she says. "I'm not going to spend the rest of my life as a ruler's consort and do the same thing."

Zuko knows her reasons make sense, but it's all he can do not to strike out at her in anger and hurt, ruin everything between them with harsh words and accusations. But all he says is, "What will you do?"

Mai looks considering. "I don't know. Maybe I'll travel. Write a book." She hesitates for a moment. "What I would like to do--" She trails off.

"What is it?" Zuko says.

"I'd like to see Azula again," Mai says. "To help look after her."

He hesitates. He hesitates, damn him. It's the first time anyone but Uncle has mentioned Azula to him since they put her away; there's no more closely guarded secret in the kingdom than where she is being held. He hesitates, and Mai can see him do it.

"I chose you over her," she says, her voice sharp as a knife. "You think I would betray you for her now? I thought you knew me better than that."

"I don't-- I didn't-- _Mai_," he says, but it's too late, and she's gone.

At the Winter Solstice, he announces his engagement to a prominent young Fire noblewoman. She is very pretty, and very smart, and an excellent Fire bender, and her family is much loved throughout the country, even now. She will make an excellent bride. Even Uncle says so, when Zuko presses.

**Year Five**

The revolt starts in the north, and it moves quicker than lightning. The Lightning Rebellion is what they call it. Azula rides in front of the mob on a pale gold ostrich horse and her smile is the same, and her legend sparkles up bright and new. The Old Firelord's daughter has returned to her people, they say. She's returned to lead us to victory once again.

It doesn't take very long to put it down; as impressive as they looked, there was little organization or planning. One skirmish in the fields outside a small peasant town and the rebels surrender. He sees his sister for the first time in over four years when she kneels at his feet in chains. Her smile is the same, he sees, but her eyes are not. Where they once were impossibly clever and alert, they are now glassy and dim. She's a figurehead, nothing more; the men were using her as an excuse to rise up.

She's done worse to a thousand people, a thousand times over, and yet it sickens him to see her like this, to see her brought down, a mere glimmer of what she once was.

He orders her execution. He doesn't have a choice. He forces himself to attend her beheading himself, and he does not cry when it happens.

A few days later, the Avatar arrives to see him. Aang blows his way past all the guards, settling down directly before the throne without warning. The anger pours off him in waves. It's amazing how visible anger becomes, Zuko thinks. He can see it around himself, like a great aura, even now, everyday.

"You killed her," Aang says, pointing his staff straight at Zuko. "How could you?"

Zuko looks at him. "What would you have me _do_, Aang?" He puts his hands in front of him, offering up his open palms to Aang's gaze. "I'm trying to do what's right. I'm doing the best I can."

He's expected Aang to yell again, but Aang's face goes softer. "I know you are, buddy," Aang says, and there's a sadness in his tone that makes Zuko's throat go tight. Aang steps closer, and Zuko closes his eyes as he is pulled into a close, tight hug, and rests his head on Aang's shoulder.

"Destiny sucks," Aang says quietly.

Zuko is forced to agree.


End file.
